It just feels lazy to me, like the developer couldn’t be bothered adjusting the UI for consoles so they copied the PC interface and bound the mouse cursor to a stick. Some games do both at the same time, having menues navigable both with buttons and a cursor, but usually that makes all menus unreliable and unprecise as hell.
Nevermind didn’t complain - that UI won actual awards. And despite OP’s disdain for the concept (which, admittedly isn’t always implemented very well in other titles), Destiny’s implementation of it was really good. (It still is, but it was, too.)